From Classical Architecture to Contemporary Experiment
INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
Promoted by the Italian Embassy in Beijing and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Beijing, Chinese Voices on Palladio, with its opening on 10 July 2026, has been hosted at the Tsinghua Art Museum, one of China’s most prestigious art museums, located on the campus of Tsinghua University, recognised as the country’s most authoritative academic institution.
The result of over two years of research, intercultural dialogue and scholarly collaboration between Italy and China, the exhibition is curated by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino, in collaboration with the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University and with the support of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani. The project offers an original reflection on the relationship between the theoretical and design legacy of Andrea Palladio and contemporary Chinese architectural thought.
The exhibition stands in ideal continuity with Geometry, harmony and life. The architecture of Andrea Palladio from Antiquity to Classicism, the major exhibition recently concluded at the National Museum of China in Beijing, which recorded over half a million visitors, confirming the deep interest of the Chinese public in Italian architectural culture and in the figure of the Renaissance architect. Both exhibition projects form part of the wider programme of initiatives dedicated to Andrea Palladio promoted by the Italian Embassy in China on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and China.
The exhibition is curated by Michele Bonino, Giorgia Cestaro, Pierre-Alain Croset and Edoardo Piccoli for the Politecnico di Torino and by Qing Feng and Li Luke for Tsinghua University, with the support of Lidia Preti and Deng Huishu. Rather than investigating possible direct influences, the project asks whether Palladio’s work, more than four centuries on, can still offer critical and conceptual tools for contemporary themes such as the relationship between architecture and landscape, the dialogue between tradition and innovation, the human dimension of built space and the pursuit of harmony as an ordering principle of design.
THE "VOICES ON PALLADIO"
The protagonists of the exhibition are fourteen of the most authoritative figures in contemporary Chinese architecture (Yung Ho Chang, former Dean at MIT in Boston; Gong Dong, member of the Académie Française; Li Xinggang, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Li Han, Zhu Pei, Wang Hui, He Jianxiang, Jiang Ying, Hua Li, Doreen Heng Liu, Zhang Li, dean of Tsinghua University; Fang Xiaofeng, Xu Haohao and Feng Jiang), invited to engage with Palladian thought through installations, drawings, models and site-specific works. Their voices also resonate throughout the exhibition itinerary in as many video interviews, produced for the occasion by the curators and the videomaker Andrea Verdelli, offering different perspectives on the meaning Palladio’s thought may take on in the context of contemporary design.
"The dialogue with the architects invites us to reconsider Palladio not as a distant figure of Western classicism, but as a source of living ideas, an intellectual reference capable of inspiring contemporary design and debate. Through this intercultural perspective, Palladio has been a starting point for an exploration of architecture as a form of shared heritage between East and West," the curators explain. "We therefore approached the architects not in order to assess an 'influence', but to understand how and whether, in their eyes, Palladio’s drawings, words and works are useful for thinking about the architecture of our time; and whether, in their eyes too, free of any prejudice about his status as an untouchable icon, Palladio deserves the label of a 'classic', able to convey a universal message about architecture despite the cultural and temporal distance."
For almost all the architects, the discovery of Palladio took place during their studies; an encounter that was rarely memorable: Palladio is introduced in the first or second year of study in China as one of the examples of the "otherness" of Western architecture. For some, the first encounter took place in American universities. For almost all, however, it was travel in Italy that made the difference. From this face-to-face encounter two types of comparison emerge, which the interviews have brought to light.
On the one hand, thought turned to the relationship between their own design practice and Palladio’s work: a relationship rather than an influence, emulation rather than debt, open questioning rather than a simple comparison of forms or solutions.
On the other hand, for a generation of architects with a strong sense of the passing of time, the encounter with Palladio’s works and landscapes brought to mind as many historic Chinese works and landscapes. Bridges, waters, temples, forbidden cities, mausoleums, gardens. Each time for different reasons, taken together they were able to transform the dialogue "with Palladio" into a choral narrative, from which a very solid relationship between contemporary Chinese culture and its own past emerges. One might speak of a "duty of memory" in the face of the rapid change of recent decades.
Alongside the section devoted to architecture, the exhibition presents a new photographic series by Lois Conner, created especially for the project. Through twelve diptychs, the images establish a refined visual dialogue between the Palladian architecture of the Veneto and the landscapes of contemporary China, which Conner has been photographing for four decades, revealing unexpected cultural, spatial and symbolic affinities between East and West.
ITALIAN ART, EXHIBITION DESIGN AND CATALOGUE
The exhibition itinerary is completed by the section "Palladio. Echoes in the Contemporary", curated by Guicciardo Sassoli de' Bianchi Strozzi, which brings together the works of five contemporary Italian artists (Luca Pozzi, Matteo Basilé, Davide Sebastian, Davide Bramante and Pietro Ruffo), invited to reinterpret the Palladian legacy through the languages of contemporary art. The works were developed within the residency programme Developments in the Contemporary, promoted by the Italian Embassy and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Beijing and curated by the Associazione Nuova Artemarea ETS. Through different media and interdisciplinary approaches, the artists extend the reflection beyond the boundaries of architecture, addressing themes such as memory, landscape, identity, nature and the relationship between past and present.
The exhibition design, by PoliTO Studio (an alliance between the Politecnico and the Ordine degli Architetti di Torino to support Italian professionals in international markets), places scholarly research, architecture, photography and contemporary art in dialogue. Chinese Voices on Palladio offers Chinese and international audiences a new perspective on the relevance of Andrea Palladio’s thought today, showing how great architectural ideas can continue to travel across time, disciplines and geographies, generating new forms of exchange and cultural dialogue between East and West.
The exhibition Chinese Voices on Palladio is accompanied by a book of the same name, an important publishing project issued by Treccani, in three languages (Italian, English and Chinese).
Technical Details
Organized by:
Tsinghua University Art Museum
Department of Architecture and Design DAD, Politecnico di Torino
School of Architecture, Tsinghua University
Co-organized by:
Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani
Promoted and Supported by:
Embassy of Italy to the People’s Republic of China
Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing
Chief Curatorial Advisors:
Zhuang Weimin (Tsinghua University)
Lu Xiaobo (Tsinghua University)
Exhibition Director:
Deng Yan (Tsinghua University)
Curators:
Michele Bonino (Politecnico di Torino)
Giorgia Cestaro (Politecnico di Torino)
Pierre-Alain Croset (Politecnico di Torino)
Li Luke (Tsinghua University)
Qing Feng (Tsinghua University)
Edoardo Piccoli (Politecnico di Torino)
Contemporary Art Section Curator:
Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi (Associazione Nuova Artemarea ETS)
Architects: Yung Ho Chang, Gong Dong, Fang Xiaofeng, Feng Jiang, He Jianxiang, Hua Li, Jiang Ying, Li Han, Li Xinggang, Doreen Heng Liu, Wang Hui, Xu Haohao, Zhang Li, Zhu Pei
Artists: Matteo Basilé, Davide Bramante, Luca Pozzi, Pietro Ruffo, Davide Sebastian
Photographic Project: Lois Conner
WORK TEAM FROM THE ITALIAN SIDE
Project Coordinators: Federico Roberto Antonelli (Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing), Elisa Palana (Embassy of Italy), Elisa Messina (Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing), Giorgia Cestaro (Politecnico di Torino), Lidia Preti (Politecnico di Torino)
Scientific advisor: Guido Beltramini (Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio / Palladio Museum)
Academic Assistant: Lidia Preti (Politecnico di Torino)
Exhibition Assistants: Zoe Yang, Alp Arda
Translator: Ren Jingge (Associazione Nuova Artemarea ETS)
Operational Team: Daniele Galleni (Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing), Leilei Wang (Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing), Christian Fontana (Embassy of Italy)
Press and Communication: Giulia Radovan (Embassy of Italy), Xiaoning Yang (Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing), Antonella Massia (Politecnico di Torino)
Video Interviews Director and Producer: Andrea Verdelli
Visual Director: Francesco Carota, Margherita Iperique
Exhibition and Graphic Design: PoliTO Studio (Alessandro Cacioppo, Francesco Carota, Gabriele Gatti, Francesca La Malva, Alessandro Servalli, Luca Zanon), China Room PoliTO (Edoardo Bruno, Lidia Preti)
Exhibition Construction Design and Supervision: Calibro Zero (Beatrice Armano, Margarita Avanesian, Francesco Carota, Vittorio Cravino, Margherita Iperique, Ilenia Marchitelli)
WORK TEAM FROM TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY
Project Coordinators: Wang Chenya, Deng Huishu, Ma Xiao, Chen Xinglu
Academic Assistant: Deng Huishu
Design Supervisors: Wang Peng, Liu Huijian
Publicity Team: Liu Yaomeng, Zhou Xinxin, Xiao Fei
Education Program: Wang Ying, Zhou Ying, Wang Wenhui, Zhang Ruiqi
The initiative has been made possible with the support of important sponsors:
YangTse Foundation, Banca IFIS, Brembo N.V., Weichai, Shandong Haoxin Group, Ferragamo, Assicurazioni Generali Asia Regional Office, Chery Automobile, ENI Representative Office, Gruppo SAVE, Hixih Rubber Industry Group, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA, Pirelli Tyre, Zoppas Industries Hangzhou, Air China, Alfa Romeo, Alpilatte Brazzale, Brunello Cucinelli, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, Confindustria Vicenza, Drago, Ermenegildo Zegna HK, Flamma Group, Fondazione Bracco, Fondazione Bulgari, Futurasun, Gemmo, Golden Goose Shanghai Trading, Intesa Sanpaolo, Investindustrial Advisors Shanghai, Moncler, OTB Group, Foshan Piaggio Vehicles Technology R&D, Prada, RINA Italy Classification Society China, Snam Gas & Energy Services Beijing, Stefano Ricci, UFI Filters, Veronafiere, Villalta Srl, Zambon Company.
